We are a group of educators, students, and parents seeking a democratic society. We are concerned with questions like: How can we teach against racism, nationalism and sexism in an increasingly authoritarian and undemocratic society? How can we gain enough real power to keep our ideals AND teach? Whose interests do schools serve in a society that is ever more unequal? We want to learn about equality, democracy and social justice as we simultaneously struggle to bring those into practice.

30 November 2009

The MORAL LAW causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler, so that they will follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger. Sun Tzu

Dear Friends,

There have been at least 16 occupations seeking to rescue education from the ruling classes in California this month, and more to come. UC Irvine next. Germany, Austria, and France also witnessed fight-backs coming from united students and workers.

To date, the only organized school voice in the US that recognizes the current crises as class war is the Rouge Forum–which may speak well for us, or not so well for others who, so far, hold onto wisps of unfounded hope made up of the shreds of democracy and citizenship in the USA.

The direct action occupations and the defenders outside the buildings up the ante for thought and action in schools and in the streets, demonstrating the violence behind capitalist democracy; overcoming the alienated notion that people other than us will save us.

On the Education Agenda is a Class War Agenda Front: Video: UC Berkeley Occupation and Cop Attack: “This university has no moral legitimacy at all…just violence.” And segment of comment from Susan Harman on the scene, “students we talked to who’d been inside said they broke hands and noses and clubbed people, and that they could hear the crackling of tasers.” http://www.ktvu.com/news/21674608/detail.html

UC Students Statement on the Necrophilia of University Life: “Being president of the University of California is like being manager of a cemetery: there are many people under you, but no one is listening.”UC President Mark Yudof; “Capital is dead labor which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor.” Karl Marx http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/11/25/18630552.php

Peter Phillips of Project Censored: Higher Ed Cuts Serve the Rich: “The students who are protesting tuition increases know they are being ripped off. They know that we are bailing out the rich with hundreds of billions dollars for Wall Street and massive budget cuts for the rest of us. The corporate media doesn’t explain to over-taxed working families how they are paying more while the rich sock it away.”http://dailycensored.com/2009/11/22/the-higher-education-fiscal-crisis-protects-the-wealthy/

Ohanian on the Dem/Repub Alliance to Deny Education to the Public: “no group was a stronger supporter of NCLB than the Democratic Leadership Council. Take a look at this page. Click on a few of the articles–if you have the stomach for it.” http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=614

Detroit’s DFT May Soon Report Out the Worst Big City School Worker Contract in History Including Massive Pay and Benefit Cuts, Layoffs, Merit Pay, and a “Covenant” With the Broad Foundation. Here is a short photo tour of some of the 69 closed and stripped Detroit Public Schools. http://richgibson.shutterfly.com/26

The Falling Sky and Endless War Fronts: Yes, of Course the Sky is Falling: 15 Signs of American Ruin: “The economic elite have launched an attack on the U.S. public and society is unraveling at an increased rate. You may have missed it in the mainstream news media, but statistical societal indicators are reading red across the board. Let’s look at the top 15 statistics that prove we are under attack.” http://www.alternet.org/workplace/144109V

Demagogue To Send 34,000 More Troops to AFPAK: “Obama met Monday evening with his national security team to finalize a plan to dispatch some 34,000 additional U.S. troops over the next year to what he’s called “a war of necessity” in Afghanistan, U.S. officials told McClatchy. Obama is expected to announce his long-awaited decision on Dec. 1, followed by meetings on Capitol Hill aimed at winning congressional support amid opposition by some Democrats who are worried about the strain on the U.S. Treasury and whether Afghanistan has become a quagmire, the officials said. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/336/story/79380.html

Blair Warned Invasion Illegal: “Mr Blair refused to accept Lord Goldsmith’s advice and instead issued instructions for his long-term friend to be “gagged” and barred from cabinet meetings, the newspaper claimed. Lord Goldsmith apparently lost three stone, and complained he was “more or less pinned to the wall” in a No 10 showdown with two of Mr Blair’s most loyal aides, Lord Falconer and Baroness Morgan. Mr Blair also allegedly failed to inform the Cabinet of the warning, fearing an “anti-war revolt”. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/iraq-the-uwaru-was-illegal-1830508.html

Bloomberg: Goldman (Gov’t) Sachs to Pay Just 1% Tax: “Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which got $10 billion and debt guarantees from the U.S. government in October, expects to pay $14 million in taxes worldwide for 2008 compared with $6 billion in 2007. The company’s effective income tax rate dropped to 1 percent from 34.1 percent, New York-based Goldman Sachs said today in a statement. The firm reported a $2.3 billion profit for the year after paying $10.9 billion in employee compensation and benefits. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=a6bQVsZS2_18

Increasingly neoliberal economic policies are transforming the delivery ofpublic education. In the current era of marketplace reforms the idea ofthe public has been supplanted by a private ideology of risk management;whereby, under individualization, students as consumers are taughtresponsible choice strategies designed for competitive advantage in theso-called new economy.

Under Keynesian economics, which held sway in the U.S., Britain, Canada,and Australia from the 1930s to the Thatcher-Reagan era of the 1980s, thepublic sought to ameliorate inequities stemming from race, class andgender bias, but under neoliberalism the state has shifted to promoting ameritocratic myth of governing the self. As old collectivities and theirsupport structures such as working-class labor and unions have begun todisappear under advanced capitalism so too have their counterparts withinthe school system.

In this special issue we seek manuscripts that explore the devolution ofpublic education under neoliberalism. We are interested in scholarlypapers that trouble the notion of risk in an educational environment ofcompetitive capitalism, the nature of specialized curriculums that aredevoted to social advantage, the ways in which schools have outsourcedservices and privatized operations; and the assaults on teachers’ rightsthrough de-unionizing practices, the dismantling of seniority, and theerosion of benefits. We are interested in case studies of neoliberaldesigned school-based reforms as well as accounts of teaching aboutneoliberalism in the social foundations classroom.